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Hollywood Mysteries: M Night Shyamalan (Part I: The Rise)

Welcome to “Hollywood Mysteries”, my essay series about things that BAFFLE me in movies and tv. No, I’m not going to be writing about the Black Dahlia, or Bob Crane or George Reeves, or that kind of Hollywood Mystery. I’m going to write about crazy production decisions, no brainers that got fumbled, people who lost their fastballs suddenly, that sort of thing.

M Night Shyamalan was one of these directors that began as a child with a Super 8 camera and made something like 45 home movies before he could walk and talk. He also made two smaller, film festival/limited release type movies, “Praying With Anger” and “Wide Awake” before being introduced to the world at large.

You see, the two things that Pop Culture remembers about this movie are the catchphrase “I see Dead People”, which wound up making AFI’s 100 years… 100 Movie Quotes (44) and the “Twist” which would undoubtedly be number one on AFI’s 100 years… 100 Plot Twists, if such a thing existed. Honestly, though? That’s short-changing it. Selling it short. The last time I re-watched this movie, I was watching Osment’s final scene. The one where he and his mother are stuck in traffic in the car, and he sees the bicyclist, and he finally confesses his secret to his mother. She doesn’t want to believe him, but then he tells her about seeing his grandmother (her mother), and the mom (Toni Collette, in a great performance no one credits this flick for, even though she scored an Oscar Nom, too) starts crying, and he starts crying, then I start crying, the dead biker is crying, everyone’s crying… and I realized… If this movie ended right here. NO TWIST. It’s still a GREAT $#%&ing MOVIE.

I’ve never seen the “Cider House Rules”, but I have an incredibly hard time imagining that Osment didn’t get jobbed out of an Oscar for his performance in this movie because of his age. I can’t imagine Michael Caine being better than this. Sorry.

And then the infamous Twist comes, and BAM!! Suddenly, the movie is catapulted into legend. A solid A film, capped off by the biggest shocker since “Psycho”, which turns the whole thing into an instant pop culture phenomenon. “Greatness”, written and directed M Night Shyamalan. He’s nominated, but doesn’t win for Best Director (Less of a beef with that than Osment’s loss, “American Beauty” is also one of my favorite films ever), and the World is his oyster. He was 29 years old.

So what does he do? Well, he follows it up with “Unbreakable”. Again starring Bruce Willis, “Unbreakable” is a Superhero movie of sorts that follows a man with special powers who is reluctant to use them for the greater good because he’s a family man. He’s coaxed into action by Samuel L Jackson, who actually gives one of the best performances of his career, here. He’s not as “over the top” as we usually associate with him. “Unbreakable” was a solid, engrossing story, with two excellent performances by two big name actors that really kept you involved and interested until BAM!! ANOTHER TWIST… And I didn’t see that one coming either. Suddenly, for the second time in a row, Shyamalan takes a movie that was earning a certain, very good grade, does the extra credit problem, and winds up with an A. I mean, the last five minutes of this movie move the score up from like a B, B+ right into A range. Now, it’s no Sixth Sense… that movie is an A++, but it’s still rock solid. I love it.

At this point in time, I (and everyone else in America) began to watch out for M Night Shyamalan movies.

His third major film was “Signs”, an alien invasion movie starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. Retroactively, pop culture has downgraded this movie, but at the time, it was Shyamalan’s third straight “at least excellent” film. Gibson plays a widower who is raising his two kids on a rural farm. His brother, Phoenix, lives with them. When mysterious crop circles begin to appear in their crops, Gibson worries for the safety of his family. Slowly, an Alien invasion is revealed, and the farmhouse is visited by unwelcome guests from outer space.

Revisionist history sometimes includes this movie as one of Shyamalan’s “Lame” movies, but that’s not correct. Once again, M Night got great performances out of his two leads and the two kids – Abigail Breslin (the future “Little Miss Sunshine”) and a random Culkin. The “Invasion” is revealed incrementally, and along the way a serious amount of tension builds. I haven’t re-watched this flick in years, but I still remember laughing pretty hard at Joaquin Phoenix in a tinfoil hat sitting with the two kids. Atop it all, Mel Gibson (before he turned into crazy Jew-Hating Woman Bashing Mel) gave a great, vulnerable performance as a man who had recently lost his wife and is obviously not over it.

The reason people bash this movie now is mainly because of the “Twist”. It’s…. not that great. Imagine the twist endings of Shyamalan’s movies to this point as an Olympic diving competition, and the first diver would pull off some miraculous, flipping spinning whirlygig and then split the water without a ripple and the crowd would go nuts and the judges would leap to their feet holding up 10s. The second diver would pull off something almost just as miraculous and everyone’s still going bananas as the judges hold up another round of 10s. Then the third diver gets up and does a simple somersault into the pool and the crowd just has some polite clapping while the judges hold up 6s and 7s. Now, I don’t blame Shyamalan for trying to do it, here. I mean, to this point, everyone in the world’s been slurping his johnson over the twist endings to his movies. Wouldn’t you try to include one if you could? It just didn’t work. It didn’t hurt the movie any… some random viewer nowadays without any context would probably think that the ending was just fine. But, for the first time, everyone had gone into this movie not just as a movie, but as an “M Night Shyamalan” movie. There was an expectation of a twist! (Which in and of itself is a challenge… I mean, how are you going to fool an audience who goes in thinking “You’re not fooling me this time”?)

The lame twist ending to Signs aside, it was still an exceptional movie in my opinion. So at that point in time, Shyamalan’s first three movies had graded out (Again – my opinion), A++, A, A-. He had written all of them. He was 32 years old. I mean, if he walked away from writing and directing right then, I think we’d have all been saying things like “Can you imagine if Shyamalan kept directing? How many great films he would have made?”. In 2002, he was right at the top of my list of favorite working directors, I mean, number one. And including him in the all time greats like Spielberg and Scorsese and Hitchcock? I seriously thought it was only a matter of time.

I had no idea how quickly the wheels could come off. Frankly, I still can’t believe it. That’s why it’s a “Hollywood Mystery” to me.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of this, even if I’ve only seen three Shyamalan films (The Sixth Sense, Signs, and The Last Airbender). I haven’t seen The Sixth Sense in a long time, but I really enjoyed it, and probably still would. Though I am glad American Beauty beat it at the Oscars. Signs, while it certainly isn’t a bad movie, is not one I find particularly great. It’s very tense, and M. Night does a very good job mounting the tension, but the payoff is extremely lackluster. The acting from all is good though, and you’re right, it’s not a lame film by any stretch.

First off, thanks for checking back in and for your encouraging comments. As a blogger yourself, I’m sure you know how much it means. Plus I’m still a total newbie to this so it’s extra appreciated.

This essay is already in the can and parts II and III post tomorrow and Thursday. I turn the channel back from M Night bashing on Fri with my review of Horrible Bosses.

I am TOTALLY open to suggestion on this theme. Honestly I don’t have that many ideas lined up. The ones I do though, I’m very passionate about.

And the prequels are one of them : )

It’s going to be awhile though. A) it will be massive, I have a LOT to say and I’ve had years to think about it. Even without the intention of blogging I was thinking about it. B) the blu ray launches in a couple of months, so I’m at least waiting til then so I can dl some quality screencaps off the net.

But listen, please, if you’ve enjoy what you’ve been reading, keep coming back, I have tons of good things I’m working on!

Watching the Sixth Sense in the theatre is one of my all time favourite movie watching moments. It was first show on opening night, so *no one* had seen the movie. When the twist was revealed, you could feel this wave of revelation and goosebumps pass over the entire audience. I’ve never experienced that before or since.

I remember watching a preview for The Sixth Sense in a theater and commenting to my friend that it looked really good…until Bruce Willis showed up. It’s so weird that he had such a career lull in the late 90s, but was still in awesome movies.

My personal favorite of M. Night’s films is “Unbreakable,” but I’m a bit of a comic book dork, so that might account for it.

As for Signs, I will agree that the acting is all top-notch, especially the kids. But revisionist history or not, the twist is stupid and everything involving faith was ham-fisted. That doesn’t stop it from still being a solid flick, though.

But if you’re looking for Part II of my Shaymalan piece? It’s up and so is part III. Can’t link them for you now, but there’s a Hollywood mysteries category link in the upper right of my home page. That will take you to all three parts.

If you mean when can you expect the next installment of H’wood mysteries. It’s next week. TV related, but I have to get it off my chest.